


grey ocean

by aestrales



Series: canon-compliant cc series [1]
Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Azkaban, DMLE | Department of Magical Law Enforcement (Harry Potter), Gen, Patronus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestrales/pseuds/aestrales
Summary: Harry pays a visit to Azkaban.
Series: canon-compliant cc series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749031
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	grey ocean

The silver stag had been following Harry long before he reached the island itself. But as they approached the shore it took up a protective position at the bow of the little rickety boat, bearing its antlers against the horde of black shapes that swooped across the grey sky around Azkaban. The slight man beside Harry tapped his wand lazily against the side of the boat, and it angled itself to come into the shore at the base of a set of grey stone steps. Harry frowned. Even without the sinking feeling the dementors would inspire if not for the presence of the stag, which was now restlessly prowling in front of Harry, it was a grim sight indeed. He’d been very clear from the beginning of his time in the ministry that he was against the Dementors’ presence, and on multiple occasions he had explicitly voiced his feeling to ministry assemblies. But as Hermione often said, wizards don’t like to change their minds. Teddy had started a small uprising in the Auror department about it once, and Hermione had backed them, but the Wizengamot had doubled down on tradition since her election and wouldn’t budge for love nor galleons.  
“Right this way, sir.” The slight man steering the boat clambered awkwardly off the side, and Harry followed suit. The shingle beach was as grey as anything else on the island- something about the atmosphere was completely infected by the dementors, and everything was washed greyscale. Looking down at the hand that still held his wand, which was barely guiding the trotting stag before him, his skin seemed luminous compared to the darkness of the island. The jagged scars on the back of his right hand shone a kind of lurid vermillion, the only real colour in his entire line of sight.  
Letting the stag climb a few paces ahead of him, Harry began to ascend the staircase alone. It was normal for the guard to stay with the boat, but usually Harry would have traversed Azkaban with a party of other ministry officials. Hermione hadn’t questioned it when he said he was coming alone, but her face held the same curious expression he’d seen a thousand times before. She didn’t ask questions, which he appreciated, but she made no secret of the fact she had them.  
Harry knew roughly where her cell was, but it was such a disorienting little island that he took a few wrong turns before finding her. Peaky faces looked out at him, but he didn’t meet anyone’s eye. Guilt burned somewhere vague in the back of his head.  
She was looking out over the ocean, but she looked up as the stag approached. Her shoulders relaxed a little as the protective effect of the patronus reached her. She recognised the animal, and almost smiled. There was something a little endearing about her now. She seemed to have embraced her fate, and she looked up at Harry with an expression that bore no hostility. The power of hurting others had been taken away from her, and it almost looked like it had done her some good.  
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Her tone, drier than dry, was too flat to be amused. Harry realised he didn’t really have an answer.  
“Delphi.” He nodded slightly in greeting. She turned back to look at the ocean.  
“I like the stag. Like your parents.” She nodded in its direction without looking.  
“History books?” Harry replied.  
“I learned it, you know. To rival you, to be worthy of my father-” her voice lacked the conviction it had once held on that subject- “I first had to equal you. I cast a corporeal patronus at sixteen.” She turned her head away from the ocean, grey as it was until the very horizon. “A dolphin.”  
“Dolphin?”  
“Mmm. Not an Augurey. There’s something interesting about that, now, isn’t there?” She turned back to the grey waves. “Nothing gives you time for introspection like two years of ceaseless misery. And failure. I failed, and now I see the task for what it was.”  
Harry hadn’t quite expected this. He hadn’t expected her to want to talk to him. But here she was, delivering a measured answer to questions he hadn’t realised he held.  
“And what was it?”  
“My fate. Not to complete it. To fail.” Her mouth twisted a little in frustration. “What you said to me, about always being an orphan- I’ve thought a lot about that. You hurt your son because you didn’t have the option not to. That’s the way I see it, at least.”  
“I did have the option. It was my fault.” Harry’s shoulders stiffened slightly, and the stag took a few steps closer to him.  
“I disagree. You wouldn’t have done it consciously. It was reflexive. A reaction to pain. Just like everything I did.” There was a very long pause. Harry considered how to respond- he felt rather uncomfortable about Delphi’s commentary, even more so about the fact she might be right. “I couldn’t resurrect the darkness. I couldn’t save my father. Because I wasn’t doing it for its own sake. I wanted to be someone’s daughter. The Augurey was a side effect of that. The world could have seen what a powerful combination we were, the Dark Lord and his beloved daughter, who did all he would have wanted her to do.”  
Another very long silence fell. Harry couldn’t quite absorb all that Delphi was saying. He glanced at the stag, which was pawing the ground. A dementor came a little too close, and it charged right to the edge of the cliff face, startling the dark creature backwards. Delphi kept her gaze fixed on the ocean as the stag returned in a flash of silver.  
“You can’t make a dead father proud.” Harry didn’t think about the words before he said them, and they stung like a whip once he had spoken. He hadn’t realised that was true before he said it.


End file.
